blake's on a two-wheeler!

I am quite possibly the laziest parent ever. I delayed attempting to toilet-train Blake because I just wanted him to "get it," without a bunch of clean-up on my part. Believe me when I say that I have paid DEARLY for that decision, in years and years of dealing with clean-up (not on the floor - USUALLY - but in the britches) anyway. Who's the fool now?

I took a similar tack with two-wheelers. Running after one, hoping he got the feeling of balance while I exhausted myself sounded suspiciously like work. I kept training wheels on for a ridiculous amount of time, finally getting embarrassed at the tiny bikers pedaling themselves furiously to school. Last summer, I borrowed a pedal-less bike from the Bozeman Bike Kitchen and told Blake it was his ghetto version of a (pricey) Strider Bike. I will call it the g-strider.

He loved it, whipping round corners on the sidewalk, running himself ragged and getting tired rather quickly. Still, when I asked if he was ready to pedal like his friend (fully nine months younger), he was confident that he would be on his g-strider forever.

B: "I think we should go on a bike ride. I'll just use my Strider bike."
A: "I will not go on a bike ride when you're on that. You won't be able to keep up. I WILL go on a ride if you're on your pedal bike."
B: "I am pretty sure I should bike to school on my Strider bike."
A: "What part of what I just said didn't make sense to you?"

We were all outside today, and he beelined for the g-strider bike, looking at me. I shook my head and pointed to the Transformers bike that he got as a gift for our wedding. Crestfallen, he wheeled it out and started trying to use it like his beloved g-strider, which, predictably, didn't work. I told him to get comfortable with it on the flat part of the sidewalk while Rob and I worked on some things in the garage.

Suddenly, we hear a loud "WHOOP!" We look at each other and smile, and I walked to the door just as Blake rolled by, wobbly and cautious, but definitely pedaling.

"THIS IS AWESOME!"